At 5.11am on Monday (September 15), SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying the Cygnus spacecraft (NG-23 mission) on a resupply run to the ISS. On board was the Thailand Liquid Crystals in Space (TLC) experiment — marking the first time Thai research has joined a NASA space mission.
The TLC project explores liquid crystal behaviour in microgravity and was developed by a team of researchers at Kasetsart University. Its inclusion in NASA’s Commercial Resupply Service (CRS) mission underscores Thailand’s growing presence in global space science.
A Thai delegation led by Acting President of Kasetsart University Damrong Sripraram attended the launch, alongside officials from the Thailand Science Research and Innovation (TSRI), the Program Management Unit for Human Resources & Institutional Development, Research and Innovation (PMU-B), and the Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA).
Robyn Gatens, Director of the ISS at NASA, and Robert Hampton, Director of Payload Operations at the US ISS National Lab, congratulated the Thai research team and praised their achievement as a significant step forward for international scientific collaboration.